"The main thing is that obviously we were very close in the early
days, family-like, really," says Judas Priest axeman K.K. Downing, down the
line from Prague, on the chain of events that have found the mighty Priest
back together with metal god Rob Halford. "Rob knew my family and I knew his
family well and it was actually Rob's mom and dad's 50th wedding anniversary
- which is obviously the big one, isn't it? - where we got together. I was
invited to that and of course Rob was there and that was the first time I'd
seen him in many, many years. And we didn't discuss anything about anything
at the time. It was just a celebration, a big bash."

Bassist Ian Hill was there, and K.K., in saying how that broke the ice
for the three of them, intimates that this resulted in a bit of a lag in the
patching of relations for guitarist Glenn Tipton, Glenn having had other
engagements in Spain at the time. In any event, we all know now that all is
well, with the band touring greatest hits style for now in Europe, a bright
shiny new record (almost) in the can.

"It's so close to being done, it isn't funny," enthuses Downing. "We've
got a few days of guitar overdubs, and maybe one day of vocals to do. But
it's there, it's pretty much complete, we've played it to the record
company. But obviously, we're on tour now in Europe and it's going
fantastic. We must have played to about 10,000 people last night; it was
sold out last night here in Prague. Luckily we brought the record company
out, Sony, and the promoters, so we're talking about putting on a worldwide
tour, releasing the album in early November, and then get Christmas out of
the way, and then we've already put dates in in the UK and already put some
dates in in Japan."